Storm Chasers

Thursday 7-Jan-2010

Gloucester- Belbora - Taree - Wauchope - Oxley Highway - Gingers Creek - Walcha - Thunderbolts Way - Gloucester = Epic

We rode out of the country lodge at a civilised 8.30am and went into the main town of Gloucester, fuelled up and had breakfast. We headed out towards Belbora on what was a pretty good road with some good looking countryside - this is still the Bucketts Way but doesn't seem to get as much use as the north/south section and gets you into some very scenic country. We hardly saw anyone except a few caravans which we rightly treated as the mobile chicanes that they are. The Speed Triple was fantastic - torque everywhere and that distinctive sound led to me cracking the throttle open at pretty much any opportunity.

We got on to the Pacific Highway and headed north for Taree and then on to Wauchope. Near Taree on the divided road section we saw our first highway patrol car in action - that action consisted of him making a point of aiming his radar at us as we rode directly past him, like he was having a shot at us with a taser - yes we saw you 400m ago as you no doubt saw us, so why aim your radar at us now when we we have maintained constant legal speed for the entire length of the road? A warning I'm sure - thanks Plod. Past Taree was a boring section made worse by about a 40km length of single lane road works with a heap of traffic on it - not fun, but it was leading us to the Oxley, so it was bearable. Kind of.

We got to Wauchope and topped up our tanks for the run up the hill to Gingers Creek. The temperature was mid/high twenties and the humidity was off the scale. I took my waterproof liner out of my Dri-rider jacket and Steve offered to take it in his tank bag for me. This was a mistake.

We'd left most of our gear back at Gloucester as we were heading back that way via Thunderbolts so all I was carrying was a bumbag with a few things in it - camera, puncture repair kit, wallet, etc. After draining a couple of Powerades we put our gear back on with the plan to have lunch at Gingers Creek. I was pretty excited as this was my first time on the Oxley in over two years and Steve hadn't been on it for about the same length of time. I got caught behind a car around the short twisty section before Long Flat - not good as Steve got through and was no doubt hooking into the corners while I was stuck behind a station wagon being driven by Thirston Howell III. It ended up being about 4kms before I could pass him which brought me to the long flat sections of the appropriately named Long Flat and Ellenborough. By the time I got past that car Steve was long gone so I hooked in to it wanting to catch him before we started the climb up the hill. This took longer than I thought, the bastard was nailing it too and I finally got a glimpse of him about 15km down the road.

From there until Gingers Creek was one of the best rides I have ever had. The Oxley had recently been resurfaced and it was in excellent condition. I saw one truck coming the other way and a couple of cars and bikes but heading up the hill it was deserted.  I think I changed into third gear twice in the entire time and just had the Speed Triple singing in second  gear all the way - using its excellent torque to power out of the 30km posted left and right corners - for about 40kms all the way to Gingers Creek. Outstanding.

There were a couple of right handers which had a few bumps mid corner which unsettled the bike a bit but apart from that it was fantastic - every ride should be like that. If any of you have not done the Oxley, do it! About 10km before Gingers Creek there was a heap of leaf litter and bark all over the road due to a hailstorm the night before. This was ok though as it was pretty much all over the road so there were no surprises - you could see it, unlike an oil spill or the like.

At Gingers Creek we had lunch and a ginger beer and we agreed it was the best run up the hill we had ever had. We now had some more twisties then the fast open section to Walcha ahead of us and we got going again. Steve still had my waterproof liner in his tank bag and I tucked my jacket into my gloves. Large white cumulonimbus clouds were developing in the west - ones that develop vertically with a clearly defined edge. No worries, I thought. We'll be in Walcha soon.

We cleared the twisties and were now on the open sweepers that go forever - or to be more precise about 50km. The horizon was full of those same clouds ranging from white to dark grey - particularly due west - or where Walcha was. But we'll be OK, I thought,  as we started some impromptu top gear roll-ons on this deserted piece of bitumen. We were having a great time. You can see for miles up there, and the road is all long sweepers and straights. I dare say you could even top out a B-King on these roads - do it someone please and giz pics/video!

30km out of Walcha the clouds were now clearly indicating a massive storm brewing directly ahead of us. Steve and I  were obviously thinking the same thing as we both put the hammer down and started racing towards Walcha. FFS - second day in a row here we were trying to beat a storm but this one was FUCKING HUGE - a classic localised extreme weather event was brewing over Walcha and we were barrelling down the Oxley straight at it! I was wishing I had a helmet cam to show you what we were heading in to as it was epic. I thought about stopping and taking a photo but to be honest it was so bad there was no way I was going to stop. We knew it was going to be wild and 20km out of Walcha neither of us thought we would make it but we had to keep going. Nothing either of us was wearing was waterproof but this storm was assuming biblical proportions and I don't think anything would have been waterproof.

I did some hunting around on the internet for some storm photos and found these, this is the closest I could find to what we were riding into. In fact this is very very similar.... yes - Fear, I was not thinking good thoughts....

 I could see small black clouds pulling up into its centre from the edges.

10km out of Walcha I was thinking we were screwed. About 20 seconds after that thought, the temperature dropped about 10-15ºC. It was like we'd just ridden into a freezer - yep, I thought, we're gone. There was a BANG! There was rain, and more rain and hail like someone had a fire hose on us. Our speed dropped to around 30km/h as we couldn't see shit, huge winds from the south and south west were blowing us all over the road, and sheets of water were running from left to right across the road. No shit, it was chaos - the worst conditions I have ever ridden in. We couldn't really stop as there were massive lightning strikes so close that as soon as we saw the lightning we heard the thunder hit at the same time. We crawled into Walcha and got under the servo roof .The storm was absolutely cranking by now and it was something to see. I said to Steve, "*&^$ $%%# probably going to be some localised flooding" - this was to prove an early candidate for the understatement of the year - a great achievement for the 7th of January.

Two hours later we were still stuck in Walcha. All roads were flooded and the town was cut off . The SES and cops were working themselves into a lather.

We tried to go on to Tamworth but that road was blocked too. We were sitting in the pub half an hour later thinking we'd be staying in Walcha in our wet gear that night when two blokes rocked up on a BMW tourer and a Triumph Daytona.

"What the fuck happened here?" they asked. They'd come up from Gloucester via Thunderbolts Way, and reported that the road was OK and bone dry 20km south of Walcha. This was great news, and we were on the bikes and heading south in minutes. We flew down Thunderbolts. There were patchy storm clouds everywhere and it was now 4.30 pm. I aw a couple of dead 'roos and started thinking about them when a bird flew between my mirrors and my chest at about 120km/h. How did it miss? Another bird flew straight into the side of Steve's bike just out of Nowendoc, hitting the front wheel and disintegrating. We had few more close calls with the feathered friends but not with anything that hopped, fortunately.

We stopped at the turnoff to Nowendoc for pic

 and continued south. We were now thinking about local flooding in the rivers down at the bottom of Thunderbolts. Paranoid you say?  Yep, I was.

We didn't stop for any more pictures as we were in a big hurry to get back to Gloucester. The three rivers on Thunderbolts Way  were flooding and rising fast, and I'm not sure if we would have gotten across the wooden bridge if we'd tried an hour later. I had an "oh shit" moment about 5km out of Barrington as I rode through some gravel on the road on an uphill left. The front and rear both slid out, but bike sorted itself out and I was OK. It certainly put the wind up me as I was pretty tired by this stage.

We got back to the Country Lodge, cleaned ourselves up and headed straight to the pub where we went into full "de-brief with beer" mode for a couple of hours..

What a unbelievable day. I was thinking when we were on the Thunderbolts Way that this was an adventure, not a ride, and it reminded me of when I first started riding years ago. An unforgettable fantastic day and that Oxley run will always be "that Oxley run" that all others will be compared to.

Previous | Next